


Mama's Devilish Child

by Lucky_19



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Episode: s07e17 Lies My Parents Told Me, F/M, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25529332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky_19/pseuds/Lucky_19
Summary: In which Spike tells Buffy about his mother and the First's trigger and Buffy realizes some things.
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	Mama's Devilish Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anya_Mae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anya_Mae/gifts).



Buffy didn’t want to watch this.

She crossed her arms over her chest, shifting her weight from side to side as Giles interrogated Spike. The vampire looked the most pathetic kind of angry she’d ever seen and it was breaking her heart. Robin seemed all out of sympathy and Giles was methodically pushing for information, leaving the Slayer wondering why she, the one who’s sister had just been injured, was the one showing the most distress over the situation. 

_You wanna know what I've done to girls Dawn's age? This is me Buffy. You've got to kill me before I get out._

Right. Because Robin and Giles believed that the demon that did those things was the same man currently chained to the wall.

“Spike, listen to me. What is it about your mother?” Giles demanded.

He shrugged one shoulder, the chains clinking with the movement. “I don't know. I got along fine with her. She was a nice lady.”

“Well there has to be more than that-”

“Well, there bloody well isn't!” he snapped.

Buffy took a breath and stepped forward. She’d had enough of this pointless questioning. He clearly wouldn’t answer to the two men and pushing was only making him more and more agitated. 

Her Watcher caught her arm, stopping her mid stride. “What are you doing?”

“I'm going to unchain him.”

She saw Spike’s eyes light up with hope the moment before Giles whirled her around to face him and whispered, “Buffy, just-”

“This is pointless, Giles,” she said quietly, knowing fully well that Spike could hear them. She yanked her arm back roughly. “He doesn't know anything. Your prophylactic stone didn't work.” She knew she said the name wrong, but she couldn’t find it in her to care.

“Because he's not cooperating,” Giles said, speaking with all the patience of a teacher talking to an insolent student. Buffy felt her hackles raise defensively. “This process takes time. He's blocking whatever's flooding his consciousness. And what he does - he's endangering us all.”

“So, the trigger's still working?” Robin asked from his position near the stairs.

“Much as ever.”

Buffy ran her hands over her face in frustration. She needed to think. Brute forcing their way through this wouldn’t work, especially if it was Robin and Giles doing the forcing. Spike wouldn’t say anything he didn’t want to to any _one_ he didn’t want to. But her and Spike had had conversations before. Normal, human, emotional conversations. Maybe she could….

“Go.”

Giles looked to her in surprise, eyes wide. “I’m sorry?”

“You two,” she said, flicking a finger between the two human men. “Go. Let me talk to Spike. Alone.”

“You just said he doesn’t know anything.”

“And I don’t think he does. But he isn’t going to admit anything to you two, especially if you’re yelling at him.” She turned to Spike. His expression was carefully guarded. _Fair enough. I deserve that._ “I just want to talk to you, Spike. You and me.”

She didn’t phrase it as a question but, as always, he knew what she was really saying. He cocked his head, considered for a moment, then nodded once. “Alright, love. We can talk.”

“Buffy, he could be dangerous-”

“He’s not dangerous,” she said sharply. “He’s not going to do anything to hurt me. Right, Spike?”

“Couldn’t even if I wanted to.” Spike yanked roughly on one of the chains. “Stay over there and you’re safe as houses. Safer, even,” he added, a glint of mischief in his eyes. She stifled an eye roll at the shared memory, but was unable to stop her smile. Spike winked at her and she playfully swiped at the air between them.

“See?” she said, turning back to Giles and Robin. “I’m totally good down here. So go. I’ll call if I need help.”

Reluctantly, both men walked up the stairs. She heard the door shut and mentally counted to twenty before she turned around again and sat cross legged on the floor, looking up at the vampire from a distance just out of arm’s reach. 

“You want to know what I saw.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I’d like for you to tell me if you think it will help. But I’m not going to force you to talk, Spike. Not if you don’t want to.”

He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, the chains clanking loudly with every movement his arms made. She sat patiently, tugging at a loose thread on her shirt. She kept trying to rip it, but it wouldn’t break. _Stupid thread. I’m a Slayer with Slayer strength! Why is this so difficult?_

“It was all true,” he said softly. She looked up slowly so as not to spook him, but his eyes were still closed. Did it make it easier for him to talk if he couldn’t see her? She leaned backwards and laid down on the basement floor, legs bent. She could tell this would take a while. She might as well get comfortable. “I _did_ see my mum and the song I keep hearing _is_ ‘Early One Morning’. She was a good woman. I loved her with my whole heart.”

“She died?” Buffy asked gently, then realized it was a stupid question. Spike’s mother would have been alive in the 1800s. There was no way she was alive now….well, almost no way. But Spike’s use of the past tense had her thinking the woman wasn’t a vampire wandering around Europe killing everyone she saw.

“I….yeah. She died.” 

His voice was tighter than it had been and Buffy sat up in alarm to see Spike clenching his jaw. “Spike? Are you okay?”

He took an unneeded breath, relaxed, and nodded. “Yeah, pet. I’m alright.”

“You sure?”

“I’m fine, Buffy. Just felt the demon sort of….stirring. Had to put it back to sleep. Keep going.”

“Okay,” she said, watching him with concern. “Tell me about your mother.”

Spike scoffed. “You don’t want to know about the song?”

“You said it doesn’t have any meaning. Why would I care about the song? Besides, I’m curious about what you were like as a human. It didn’t even occur to me that you’d have parents. So tell me about her. What was she like?”

“She was….” He fell silent and she laid down again, staring at the ceiling as he searched for the right word. “Kind,” he finally said. “Gentle. Loving. Joyce reminded me of her more often than not. My mum would have loved you.”

“How did she take your death?”

He inhaled sharply. “Buffy, I don’t want to-”

“Okay,” she said gently, trying to find a better question to ask. “What was her name?”

“Anne.”

“Did she ever meet Drusilla?”

“Once.”

Buffy nodded, but felt her stomach sink. She could tell she was losing him. “What about your father? Where was he?”

“He died right after my mum’s diagnosis.”

She felt the air vanish from the room. Suddenly, she was sitting up and meeting the alarmed eyes of the vampire chained to her basement wall. She’d never imagined she could have so much in common with Spike, but she knew the pain of a sick mother and missing father all too well. “I’m sorry,” she said with as much sincerity as she could put into her voice. She meant it and she needed him to know that. From the way his expression softened, she knew he did. “What did she have?”

“Consumption.” He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “No. Tuberculosis. It wasn’t called that back then. I took care of her after Da died. Me and mum and then….”

“And then it killed her.”

Spike laughed bitterly. “No, love. Wasn’t the disease that killed her.”

Buffy frowned. “Then what-”

“It was me.” 

_Oh_. Those three simple words slammed into her like a bus and sent her heart racing. A small part of her screamed that it made perfect sense while another part of her wondered why he would have killed a woman he said Buffy’s own mother reminded him of. She knew how much he’d loved Joyce and how much her death had hurt him. Why would he put himself through that pain?

She kept her voice carefully devoid of judgement when she said, “Angel said he killed his family, too.”

“This was different. Most vamps will leave their lives behind completely and let their families go on without them. Angelus was different. He found joy in causing pain. What could be more painful than being killed by a demon who looks like your son or brother?”

She shivered, but decided not to linger on that tidbit of information. “So what made you different, Spike? Why did _you_ do it?”

“It’s….” Spike pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and let out a soft groan that had Buffy on her feet and at his side in an instant. She placed a hand on his shoulder, immediately recoiling when she earned a purely animalistic snarl and the flash of yellow eyes. The vampire guise faded and then it was just Spike blinking at her in confusion. “She said….she told me….”

“Is the First here?” she asked, inching closer to him and looking around in the event it showed itself to her. “Is it talking to you?”

“No,” he said. “It’s only me and you, pet.”

“Then what the hell caused that?”

“It was the music box.”

She frowned, confused, as she sat on the cot beside him. He shifted, putting distance between them. “We don’t have a music box down here, Spike. Are you hearing things?”

“No, not here. There.”

“There?”

“In my memory,” he said, a current of frustration in his tone as he struggled to explain to her. She wished she could see into his mind and pluck the trigger out like it was….well, like it was the chip in his head. “When she was talking to me, she had a music box. It was playing the song.”

“When your mother was talking to you?” Buffy asked. “What did she say?”

“She said a lot of things,” Spike said softly, staring at the floor.

Buffy decided not to press the issue. “And the music box? This was before you….”

“Yes,” he said. “And no. She was already dead when I killed her, Buffy. It was just a matter of finishing the job.”

“Spike, I don’t understand. Can’t you just tell me?”

The look he shot her way was so pained she immediately regretted the request. “Don’t make me say it, Buffy. I can’t even think about it without setting off the bloody trigger. You’re a smart girl, love. Put the pieces together.”

She stared intently at the floor, thinking over everything he’d told her. A sick woman whom Spike loved, whom he killed, and who met Drusilla sometime before she died. A woman holding a music box as she talked to her son before he killed her. Or maybe after. Buffy wasn’t sure. Things weren’t adding up. Hadn’t Spike met Drusilla the night he was turned? Why would he go to his mother, whom he loved, as a vampire only to kill her? She could have understood it if he hadn’t just said Angel killing his family wasn’t normal. What was she missing?

 _She was already dead when I killed her_.

“Oh my God,” she whispered as everything suddenly clicked into place. “You turned your mother into a vampire.”

The effect on Spike was immediate, but she was ready. She danced out of his way as he stood, straining against his chains and snarling at her. She was suddenly hit with the image of another vampire chained to a wall, wild and feral as he bared his teeth. It didn’t scare her, in fact it had the opposite effect. She had helped Angel. She could help Spike. “You turned your mother into a vampire,” she said again. “And she was healthy, and happy, and holding a music box playing that song. _Early one morning, just as the_ -” 

She jumped and stopped singing when Spike growled at her. Her panic spiked as she stared at the man in front of her. _No, not man,_ she told herself as he fought against his chains. _This isn’t Spike._ “Okay, yeah, bad move. Probably shouldn’t have done that. My singing isn’t that good. A-anyways, your mother comes out with this music box and says….something. Sorry, you weren’t very specific on that one. After she says whatever it is she says, you staked her and ran off with Drusilla to find Angelus and Darla. Am I close?”

He lunged for her, yanking one of the chains with enough force to rip it from the wall. She barely had time to widen her eyes before Spike had her pinned against him, her back flush against his chest. Buffy felt the tip of his fangs tease at the skin of her neck and froze, contemplating what would happen if she called for one of her friends to help. Probably a very dusty vamp which, even if they didn’t understand, she didn’t want.

“Spike,” she said softly. He stilled behind her. _Good! That’s good! I think…._ “I’m sorry about your mother. I would have done anything to save my mom and if I could have made her healthy and immortal, I would have in a heartbeat. I don’t know what she said to you, but it wasn’t her, Spike. It was the demon in her, like this is the demon in you. Your mother loved you. I know she did.” She swallowed and closed her eyes. “What’s not to love?”

There was a moment where the world around them seemed to freeze. There was no noise from upstairs or outside, the only sounds in the basement Buffy’s steady breaths and the strange combination growling and hitching of breath Spike was making. The Slayer was almost certain someone had put her world in slow motion when the vampire’s lips brushed against the skin of her neck, every millisecond stretching into eternity as she waited for his fangs to sink into her skin and bleed her dry. She only hoped he would be more gentle than Angel.

The pain never came.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, or his mother, or himself, but she sagged against him in relief regardless. He held her upright and bowed his head against her shoulder as he took a moment to pull himself together. She swore she felt something wet on her skin and she thought she heard him stifle a sob, but when he sank down onto the cot he looked almost normal. She followed, positioning herself at his side as the two leaned against the wall. “Buffy, love, I-”

“It’s okay,” she said gently. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me. I believed you.”

“Did you, now?”

“I did. I do. Did….” She bit her lip, hesitant to ask. “Did it work?”

“I think so, pet.”

“Should we test it?” He gestured for her to go ahead, so she took a breath and softly sang, “ _Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a young maid sing in the valley below…._ ” she trailed off with a small smile. “Sorry, I don’t know the rest of it. Just the parts I heard you singing to yourself down here before you….you know.”

“You’ve got a nice voice, love. You should sing more often.”

“Stop that.”

He cocked a brow. “Stop what?”

“Doing….this.” She gestured vaguely with her hands. “You’re being flippant and going overboard with the pet names and it’s freaking me out. Talk to me, Spike. What happened up there?” She flicked his temple affectionately. 

His entire countenance changed at her words. “She said the most vile things,” he said, his eyes taking on a far off look. “She told me I was a parasite attached to her apron, that she should have dashed my brains out when she first saw me, that I was a ‘limp sentimental fool’. That I wanted to….That I turned her because I….That I wanted her to….”

Buffy, overcome with horror and sympathy, flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “God, Spike. I’m so sorry.”

“You were right,” he said, arms coming around her hesitantly. “It wasn’t her. And that…. that wasn’t me, Buffy. You know that, right?”

She pulled away from him just enough to look him in the eye. “I know.”

\----------------------------------

“Home is the other way.”

Buffy stood behind the vampire, lungs and legs burning from her run from the graveyard to Robin’s house. Spike was still alive, thankfully, and a quick peek inside assured her that Wood, though apparently unconscious, was alive as well. The vampire turned and ran an appraising glance over her body that made her wonder how much he could tell from her current state. Could sense her panic and fear that she would arrive and he would be dust blowing in the wind, or did he think it was all exertion from the journey? “Did you run here?” he asked after a moment.

“I was worried I’d be too late.”

“You thought he’d kill me?” 

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Was that why she’d been running? Or was she worried he’d kill Robin and she'd have to deal with a whole new set of problems involving convincing her friends it was in self defense? “I wasn’t sure,” she admitted. “I just knew it was a setup and started running. I didn’t want….I _don’t_ want you to die. Again, technically, but….you know what I mean.”

He cocked a brow at her, smirking with a half hearted chuckle. “Appreciate the concern, love, but I’m made of tougher stuff. It’s him you ought to have been worried about.”

“Spike-”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“I know. I poked my head in.”

“So you saw the walls.” He started walking again, glancing over in surprise when she fell in beside him. Even after she refused to kill him, told him she believed in him, saved him from the First’s torture, and even her kind-of-almost admission earlier in the day, Spike continued to be shocked when she showed she cared. What did she have to do to get it through to him that she preferred her Spikes very much undusty?

“The walls?”

“Covered in crosses. This had been planned for a while.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” He responded too quickly for it to be true, but Buffy decided to let it slide. She could deal with it when they got home. Which, based on the way Spike was taking them, wouldn’t be until sunrise. Where was he going?

“So why Robin? What was his problem with you?”

“I killed his mum. She was the Slayer in New York I did in.”

She nodded. She’d suspected as much but had been too afraid to ask. Now, she realized she’d been stupid. It would have been better to have known for sure. “What was his reaction when the trigger didn’t work?”

“Mostly confusion, but not enough not to fight. Told me he wanted to kill the monster that had killed his mother.”

“Was that before or after you punched him?”

“After.”

“Idiot.”

He rolled his eyes. “Nice comeback.”

“I thought so. Where are you hurt?” 

“Don’t worry about me.”

She grabbed his arm and made him stop, noticing with concern that he hovered in the shadows and refused to show her the right side of his face. “Spike, don’t make me ask you again.”

With a long suffering sigh, he tilted his face into the light. Her eyes widened as the angry red burn mark came into view. She hadn't even realized she’d been reaching out to him until he captured her hand with his own. “Look don’t touch, love. Still stings a bit.”

“He shoved your face into a cross.”

“More than my face.”

“ _What_?”

“I’ll be alright, pet. Got that vampire healing and all, remember?”

“I don’t care about your vampire healing! We’re going home now and putting ice on that.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Any normal person-”

“I’m not a normal person, am I?”

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“Why do you care?” he asked, lifting his arms only to drop them at his side. “Buffy, why are you doing all of this? Helping me with the First, getting me out of that torture den, talking me through the trigger….what’s the end goal?”

“The end goal? There _is_ no end goal.”

“Then why help me at all?”

“Because I _love_ you, you idiot,” she shouted. Her declaration echoed down the empty street and the owner of the house they stood in front of closed their curtains pointedly. “I love you. I nearly strangled Giles when I figured out he was stalling me but I didn’t because you are more important. I know you can handle yourself, but I ran anyway because I knew if I got here and you were a pile of dust it would break me. So I ran to you.

“I ran to you when I needed someone to protect Dawn. I ran to you when I came back from the dead because I needed someone to love me when I couldn’t do it myself and I know I didn’t handle that well and I’m sorry. I ran to you tonight because I don’t want you to die.” She laughed helplessly. “All I’ve ever done is run to you, Spike. Why should this be any different?”

He stared at her, awe, confusion, and hope all warring for dominance on his face. “You really mean all of that?”

“I do. I love you.” The words felt right as they rolled off her tongue, like she was finally saying it to the right person after all these years. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”

“Buffy-”

She reached forward, grabbed the lapels of his coat, and pulled his lips down to hers. “I love you,” she said again when she pulled away for air. “Okay? I love you and I’m not going to let that burn get worse. We’re going home and icing it.”

“Whatever you want, love,” he said, sounding a bit dazed. His lips twisted into a giddy grin that made her smile and loop her arm through his as they started walking again.

“Besides,” she added casually, resting her head against his shoulder. “I have a few surprises for my wonderful, backstabbing Watcher. You’ll probably want some popcorn and a good seat. It promises to be quite the show.”

His laugh made her laugh as well and the look he shot her way was one of such awe she had to stop and kiss him again just to be certain he knew she meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> Anya_Mae has a lot of ideas and the ability to make me think. When we combine those two things, we get creations like this little one shot. Thanks for helping me through my "post story completion" writer's block, girl!
> 
> Also! The title comes from 'One Thing Right' by Kane Brown ft. Marshmello and a handful of lines of dialogue were pulled from the episode 'Lies My Parents Told Me'.


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